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Wish the article also mentioned:
- food supply: Generically Engineered crops are the only way we're going to feed the estimated 11 billion people at our estimated peak population. Heck, it's providing a significant part of the boost that allows us to have 8 billion. If the planet went "all organic" today, billions of people would starve to death. Another billion or so would be sentenced to deadly food supply uncertainty. - nutritional value: GE crops are the best way we have to compensate for diet diversity issues in many poor areas of the world. Golden rice is a famous example, but not the only one. There are similar stories for cassava, bananas, and many other staple foods. Banning nutrient enriched crops sentences millions of children to malnutrition and its effects. - land and resource use: "organic" farming requires much more land, water, and energy to produce per calorie. Can you say "deforestation"? How about "pollution"? - food safety: GE foods undergo (required) enormous safety testing before they reach market. Testing that would fail and block many "frankenfoods" created by "organic" cross breeding, such as kiwi. What's more, "organic" blocks the possibility of creating hypoallergenic peanuts, wheat, shellfish, etc etc . - organic foods require more, and more damaging, and more lasting, pesticides than their GE sisters. - I don't like radiation in my food. The "organic" method of cross breeding involves radiospermatogenesis. That's where you bombard seeds with x-rays to promote mutation. That's genetic engineering, but randomized.
- "organic" cross breeding selects crops based on phenotype (how they look). This causes problems, like the famous extra large bananas in the 30s, which were extremely popular until it was discovered that they also produced an extra large dose of cyanide. They poisoned people who ate too many. There are lots of reasons to reject the naturist fallacy vision of "organic" food as better. These are some of my favorites. I don't want my money to support mass starvation, illness, and food insecurity. |
It's way off base to accuse people that want to eat food without antibiotics or pesticides of supporting "mass starvation, illness, and food insecurity".
This isn't about us vs them, or finding the one true way to produce food. Natural and engineered approaches will continue to exist, and that's great, because food is too important to only have one option.
I don't understand your accusation about radiation in organic foods. Are you suggesting that organic foods are radioactive because the seeds have been engineered with x-ray bombardment and selection? Organic farming is not about engineered seeds, nor would that process result in radiation in the eventual fruit.